The summer of 1861 brought the first major battle of the Civil War. Both the Confederacy and the United States had been amassing volunteers during the spring months, and many people believed that the conflict would be over by the end of the year. In fact, Parthenia Antoinette Hague, a young woman from Eufaula, Alabama, remembered that many of the "soldiers, in their new gray uniforms, all aglow with fiery patriotism" feared that "the last booming cannon would have ceased reverberate among the mountains, hills, and valleys" before they could arrive in Virginia. But their fears of missing battle were unfounded.

On July 21, 1861, the northern and southern soldiers clashed at Bull Run, a creek near Manassas Junction, Virginia. Chaos erupted. Having never been in battle before, neither group knew how to conduct itself. Some soldiers panicked. Others became confused and shot at friends instead of enemies. By mid-afternoon, the Union army had completely unraveled, and a Confederate counterattack sent the northern volunteers running for their lives. The Confederates rejoiced in their victory, as did their supporters across the South. In Alabama, a Presbyterian minister in Greensboro likened the Confederates' victory over the Yankees to that of David's slaying of Goliath. It seemed to the Confederates that they had indeed themselves bravely, despite their lack of experience. Alabamian Josiah C. Nott, a doctor serving in the field, reported that while fighting, he "saw our reinforcements pouring with the rapidity and eagerness of a fox chase, and was satisfied that they would drive everything before them. No one can imagine such a grand, glorious picture as these patriots presented, rushing to the field through the masses of wounded bodies which strewed the roadside as they passed along." In fact, Nott believed that the Battle of Manassas had "brought a nation into existence, and the scene was grand and impressive beyond the power of language."

Other Alabamians shared Nott's patriotic zest for the new Confederacy. Henry Hotze, a newspaper editor from Mobile serving in the army, wrote after arriving in Virginia that the soldiers had been learning a new song titled "Dixie," the lyrics for which were being "plentifully distributed" on "slips" of paper, which Hotze predicted "will be preserved as historical relics, when the pretty girls who welcomed us shall have become grandmothers, and relate to the wondering little ones about the times when the first troops of Confederate volunteers came from the far South to fight the Yankee's [sic] on Virginian soil." Back in Alabama, those who could not fight also participated in the nationalistic fervor sweeping the South. The Southern Advocate reported that the Huntsville Guards "were presented with a rich and tasteful Silk Flag of the Confederate States…by the Pupils of the Huntsville Female College."

Yet even as Confederates across the South sewed flags and sent their young men to battle singing songs celebrating their new nation, in the aftermath of the Battle of Manassas, some of the glamour of war was already beginning to fade. One soldier, John Henry Cowin, wrote the day after the battle that he awoke "very tired and sore." While taking a walk, he "was witness to some awful scenes. Saw the wounded, shot in every portion of the body." By the end of 1861, Alabama's young men who had participated in the battle were beginning to realize the horror of war. Nevertheless, as Confederates prepared for another year of conflict, the memory of their victory at Manassas gave them hope that their dreams of independence would become reality in the near future.

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Becoming Alabama:Civil War Era

Author

Megan L. Bever is currently a doctoral student in the Department of History at the University of Alabama. Her research interests include the nineteenth-century South and the Civil War in American culture.